1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an improved data processing system and in particular to a method and system for estimating software installation time in a data processing system. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to an improved method and system for estimating software installation time on data processing systems that utilize multiprocessing or multithreading.
2. Description of the Related Art
Installation of new software and new releases of software can be a very complex process. The installation may require a number of different disks, magnetic tape media, or CD-ROMs. In addition, different configurations for different data processing systems make the time required to complete an installation of software very hard to predict. Such a problem is greatly magnified when installing new software or new releases of software in a network because work stations within the network often have different configurations. Installation of new software often provides a user various options that may or may not be installed depending on the user's selection. The new software may include various programs as options that may or may not be installed. For example, the base code or base program of the software is typically always installed. Other programs, such as a tutorial program or a help program, may be optional when installing the new software. In addition, often times, existing files will be modified or converted when installing new software or a new revisions of the software. Currently, many methods for estimating software installation time provide estimates for selected hardware configurations and may be very inaccurate. In addition, estimations provided with installation software often take in account only stand-alone time for installation. As a result, installation times can and do very greatly from user expectations, resulting in dissatisfaction.
As a result, i would be advantageous to have an improved method and apparatus for estimating software installation times.